Submission of Work to Shades of Noir: Belonging: Navigating Artificial Borders

People of colour across the globe are having their voices and experiences shared through digital means, spaces like ‘black twitter’ and tumblr, and really just all social media in general has been great in exposing problems people of colour face. Since the rise of Trump and Brexit, these issues have started to become exposed more often, but at the same time seem to be occurring more. The Independent tells us that hate crimes have increased up to “100 per cent” since Brexit was declared, and just recently in Charlottesville all the pent up hate was manifested in a brutal white supremacist rally that ended with three dead and “thirty-five injured”.

Since the beginning of time there have been squabbles about who owns what land and who belongs where! You’ve had disputes over territory in just about every continent, for example: the Nigerian civil war for the Biafra in “1967”; the “1830” Indian removal act which resulted in The Second Seminole War in “1835”; this year’s Bhutan Border dispute between “Chinese and Indian troops” and a myriad of other occasions. It often seems that the real issue is ultimately about power and privilege. Racism, xenophobia, discrimination, prejudice, displacement, identity crisis’s, broken families, self loathing; all seem to be problems of the modern world’s obsession with borders and location. We are too preoccupied with where people are from, where we think they belong, the greatest example of this kind of thinking would be Trump’s muslim ban.

This Terms Of Reference will focus on issues of nationality, citizenship and migration and how these issues affect real people; how it affects work, mental health and education. It will look at the concept of “Home” and what that really means. Whether it is a tangible thing, defined by a location or simply just a concept? This is a collection of intergenerational voices detailing life living between two or more cultures, nationalities and histories as well as exploring the positives and negatives of being, such as agency, impacts on religion or faith practices, the accessibilities of language, cultural clashes, adjustments, hyperawareness and the navigation through diverse spaces.

We are seeking submissions that consider the above contexts and that share narratives that will consider what it means to belong and or not, how this manifests and exposes itself in the creative practice and just living. We are particularly keen to hear from those that travel for creative education, both internationally and locally.

Contributions can be expressed creatively through written pieces, poetry, personal narratives and visual imagery. This can be new work or work already created.